Eighteenth-Century Music 2/1, 113–124 © 2005 Cambridge University Pressdoi:10.1017/S1478570605000278 Printed in the United Kingdom

essays

on the relation of musical topoi toformal function

william e. caplin

!The theory of musical topoi (or topics) has emerged in recent decades as a powerful tool for the analysis ofmusical expression within tonal repertories. Largely originating in Leonard Ratner’s ground-breakingtreatise Classic Music from 1980, it has since been considerably developed and extended by some of hisstudents, especially Wye Allanbrook and Kofi Agawu.1 The theory has also stimulated considerable interestfrom music semioticians such as Robert Hatten, Márta Grabócz and Raymond Monelle, who find it a majorresource for the investigation of extra-musical referentiality and meaning.2 Indeed, topical analysis may wellbe considered one of the success stories of modern musicology.

Yet despite its widespread acceptance, one perceives in the musicological literature a certain unease at thelimitations of the theory. It is well recognized that topics are highly fluid and that it is often difficult to pindown their range of application. But even where topics are readily identifiable, some of the theory’s strongestadvocates have betrayed qualms about the extent to which a topical analysis can transcend such identifica-tion and reveal how topics interact with each other and with other musical processes. As Agawu notes inconnection with an analysis of the introduction to Mozart’s ‘Prague’ Symphony,

While topics can provide clues to what is being ‘discussed’ in a piece of music . . . they do not seemto be able to sustain an independent and self-regulating account of a piece; they point to theexpressive domain, but they have no syntax. Nothing in Ratner’s scheme tells us why the singingstyle should come after the outbursts of sensibility, or why fanfare is used toward the conclusionof the period.3

This boils down to the question of what motivates or constrains the succession of various topics within awork. Are there, in fact, rules or motivating forces that guide the ordering of topics?

A shorter version of this paper was read at the Seventeenth International Congress of the International MusicologicalSociety, Leuven, Belgium, August 2002. Support for research on this paper was generously provided by the Social Sciencesand Humanities Research Council of Canada. I thank François de Médicis for his helpful suggestions in the course ofpreparing the article.1 Leonard Ratner, Classic Music: Expression, Form, and Style (New York: Schirmer, 1980); Wye J. Allanbrook, Rhythmic

Gesture in Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983); V. Kofi Agawu,Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991). ThoughRatner and his followers seem to suggest that topic theory is rooted in the listening habits of composers and theiraudiences of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, such an implicit claim has yet to be entirely established. Thepresent essay therefore addresses the experiences of modern-day listeners without necessarily suggesting that topicswere heard similarly in those earlier times.

2 Robert S. Hatten, Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation (Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 1994); Marta Grabocz, ‘A. J. Greimas’s Narrative Grammar and the Analysis of Sonata Form’, Intégral12 (1998), 1–24; Raymond Monelle, The Sense of Music: Semiotic Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).

3 Agawu, Playing with Signs, 20.

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At times, scholars are sceptical. Thus Allanbrook concedes that ‘we have not yet been able to contributea topical syntax, in which principles for the combination of topics are laid out, and I have some doubt thatsuch a thing is possible’.4 At other times, however, scholars seem unable to let the matter rest, and they betraya continuing urge to find some means for explaining topical succession. For example, in reviewing Agawu’sbook, Vera Micznik wishes that ‘instead of just a ‘‘neutral’’ identification of topics, one could aim at findingpossible principles according to which topical discourse (or even narrative) might influence the course of apiece’.5 And Agawu himself recognizes that a combination of topics might give rise to a kind of plot,‘something like a secret agenda, a coherent verbal narrative that is stimulated by both the types of [topics]and the nature of their disposition’.6 For instance, he suggests that ‘we might speculate on a plot’ for the firstmovement of Beethoven’s String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132, whereby ‘the succession of topics reveals agradual shift from metric instability to metric stability’.7 The idea of a topical plot is also proposed by ElaineSisman, who, as part of a ‘tale of topics’ for Mozart’s ‘Jupiter’ Symphony, sees the exposition of the firstmovement progressing from topics that express a high style within the main theme, to a topic of singing stylefor the subordinate theme, finally descending to topics that project a popular or comic style in the closingtheme.8 Harold Powers not only accepts Sisman’s interpretation for this work but also extends it to othersymphonic first movements of the time.9

In linking certain topics to specific thematic sections, Sisman and Powers offer what might seem apromising way for the succession of musical topics to participate in the logical unfolding of a musicaldiscourse – namely, by relating topic to form. Indeed, Agawu picks up on this in a recent article on the‘Challenge of Semiotics’:

It seems clear that in Classical instrumental music . . . , certain topoi occur characteristically atbeginnings of pieces, while others are used in closing situations. . . . To recognize this normativecongruence – to say, in short, that topoi give a profile to more fundamental structural processes –is in part to recognize the possibility of playing with them.10

This essay explores the implications of Agawu’s challenge by examining how topoi might relate to form. I firstdiscuss the necessary conditions that must obtain for such a relation to arise, then work through somespecific cases, with the goal of testing the limits that such a relationship might offer for music analysis.11 Aswill become apparent, my conclusions tend toward the negative, for I find the link between topic and formrather tenuous. None the less, probing the interaction of topic and form can foster a greater understandingof the individuality of each of these musical domains.

We can begin by asking how it could even be possible for a given musical topic to enter into aconventional association with form. I would argue, along with many theorists and historians, that musicalform does not consist of pre-existing containers that mold the musical materials in determinate ways, but

4 Wye J. Allanbrook, ‘Two Threads Through the Labyrinth’, in Convention in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-CenturyMusic: Essays in Honor of Leonard G. Ratner, ed. Allanbrook, Janet M. Levy and William P. Mahrt (Stuyvesant, NY:Pendragon, 1992), 170.

5 Vera Micznik, review of Playing with Signs by V. Kofi Agawu, Journal of the American Musicological Society 45/3 (1992),532–533.

6 Agawu, Playing with Signs, 130.7 Agawu, Playing with Signs, 117.8 Elaine Sisman, Mozart: The ‘Jupiter’ Symphony (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 47.9 Harold Powers, ‘Reading Mozart’s Music: Text and Topic, Syntax and Sense’, Current Musicology 57 (1995), 5–44.

10 Kofi Agawu, ‘The Challenge of Semiotics’, in Rethinking Music, ed. Nicholas Cook and Mark Everist (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1999), 156. My emphasis.

11 Following the practice of most of the scholars I cite, I will draw my examples from familiar works of the three leadingViennese composers of the late eighteenth century – Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven – music that today is regularlythought to exhibit the essential features of ‘the classical style’. I have limited my examples to instrumental compositionsin order to avoid the additional semantic issues that necessarily arise from texted music.

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rather that music itself gives rise to – expresses, so to speak – its own formal interpretation. In my ownresearch I have developed and extended Arnold Schoenberg’s and Erwin Ratz’s concept of formal function-ality, whereby a listener is able to discern the formal disposition of events within a work by means of specificmusical criteria, largely based on harmonic-tonal relations but also involving processes of groupingstructure, melodic directionality and texture.12 The various formal functions that I have defined relate to thethree traditional categories of temporal expression – beginning, being-in-the-middle and ending. In addition,some framing functions express the sense of before-the-beginning and after-the-end.13 If form is conceived asa succession of functions at multiple levels in the hierarchy of a work, then an essential condition for relatinga given musical topic to a given formal function is that the topic itself embody specific form-definingcharacteristics. In the absence of such characteristics, how can we even speak of topic relating to form?

Consider the extensive list of topoi shown in Table 1, which is based on Agawu’s ‘universe of topics’ andsupplemented by additional topics cited by Monelle.14 With respect to the topics in the first column, it isquestionable whether any of them could enter into a definitive association with a specific formal context. In

12 William E. Caplin, Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, andBeethoven (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Arnold Schoenberg, Fundamentals of Musical Composition, ed.Gerald Strang and Leonard Stein (London: Faber, 1967); Erwin Ratz, Einführung in die musikalische Formenlehre: ÜberFormprinzipien in den Inventionen und Fugen J. S. Bachs und ihre Bedeutung für die Kompositionstechnik Beethovens,third, enlarged, edition (Vienna: Universal, 1973).

13 A highly generalized model of beginning–middle–ending functions is proposed by Agawu in Playing with Signs;however, unlike the model that I present in Classical Form, Agawu’s account does not distinguish the nature of thesefunctions at various hierarchical levels of a work or propose specific musical criteria for identification of thesefunctions at a given level.

14 Agawu, Playing with Signs, 30; Monelle, Sense of Music. This listing hardly exhausts the possible topics to be found ineighteenth-century music. In a recent study Wye J. Allanbrook refers to a group of eighty-six topics that she haspersonally compiled; ‘Theorizing the Comic Surface’, in Music in the Mirror: Reflections on the History of Music Theoryand Literature for the 21st Century, ed. Andreas Giger and Thomas Mathiesen (Lincoln and London: University ofNebraska Press: 2002), 196.

Table 1 ‘Universe of Topics’ (after Agawu and Monelle)

1 No formal relation 2 Possible formal relation 3 Likely formal relation

alla breve brilliant style coup d’archetalla zoppa cadenza fanfareamoroso fantasia French overturearia horse horn call (horn fifths)bourrée hunt style lamentgavotte pastoral learned stylemarch sensibility (Empfindsamkeit) Mannheim rocketmilitary musetteminuet Sturm und Drangombraopera buffarecitativesarabandesigh motive (Seufzer)singing styleTurkish music

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most cases their musical features are so general as not to connect them with any particular sense of abeginning, middle or end. In fact, many of these topoi have the potential to be used throughout an entiremovement, as was typically the case in the early eighteenth century for the dance-derived topics, such asminuet or sarabande. As for those in the second column, a particular manifestation of the topic couldpossibly yield a specific formal association, depending upon which of that topic’s characteristics are beingexploited. I will return to these topics after looking in more detail at those of column three, where we aremore likely to find some definite connection of topic to form.15

Take, for example, the Mannheim rocket, two instances of which are shown in Example 1. This topic isalmost always associated with an initiating formal function. At the level of the phrase, that functionemphasizes the stability of root-position tonic and typically employs ascending gestures that open upmelodic space. The rocket topic includes both of these characteristics in that it always consists of an upwardthrusting arpeggiation that prolongs a single harmony, usually the tonic.16 Another topic typically used at thevery beginning of a piece is the coup d’archet, shown in Example 2. Once again, the characteristic featureslinking this topic to an initiating formal position are tonic stability and ascending melodic gestures. Butsometimes the coup d’archet also embodies a textural feature that further relates it to the sense of formalinitiation: the rhythmic discontinuity that arises through the rests separating the individual bow strokes. Asa general rule, disruptions to the ongoing rhythm yield to continuity in the course of a theme or betweenthematic units. Thus at the start of a sonata, the main theme is often rhythmically disjunct, whereas thetransition that follows often brings a more continuous flow.17 A sense of rhythmic disjunction may also help

15 Just as the topics themselves are far from fixed and secure in their definition, so too the threefold classificationpresented in Table 1 is not meant to be a rigid scheme, and an overlap of topics between the columns could well beimagined.

16 Agawu identifies ‘the strident figure with which the cello opens’ Example 1b as ‘reminiscent of a Mannheim rocket’(Playing with Signs, 86), though some critics might question whether the gesture is sufficiently ‘upwards thrusting’ toqualify as an instance of the topic.

17 See Caplin, Classical Form, 197.

Example 1 Mannheim rocket: (a) Beethoven, Piano Sonata in F minor, Op. 2 No. 1/i, bars 1–4 (b) Mozart, String Quintetin C major, K515/i, bars 1–7

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explain why the topic of French overture, with its characteristic (double-)dotted rhythms, frequently occursin an initiating position, such as at the very opening of Beethoven’s ‘Pathétique’ Sonata.18

The fanfare topic is related to both the rocket and the coup d’archet but has more generalized character-istics. Its arpeggiated melodic configurations create a degree of harmonic stasis appropriate for a formalbeginning. But the potential for fanfare motives both to ascend and to descend also makes them useful inother formal contexts. Thus Agawu notes of Example 3 that ‘the clarifying function of the cadence isunderlined by a descending arpeggiation in the form of a fanfare’,19 and indeed fanfare gestures seemfrequently to lead to a cadence, especially in Mozart. To be sure, the descending gesture of this particularfanfare makes it appropriate enough for use with cadential function, but we could also recognize that sucharpeggiation may represent the last stage in a broader process of motivic liquidation, which, as Schoenberghas stressed, typically accompanies the drive to thematic closure.20

Another topic from column 3, the musette, promotes harmonic stasis. Like the rocket, coup d’archet andfanfare, the musette is especially appropriate as a formal initiator (see Example 4a). Yet since the musetteemphasizes tonic harmony in root position, the topic is also associated with post-cadential formal

18 Aside from the dotted rhythms, it is not clear that any other specifically musical characteristics associate the overturetopic with a particular formal position. For this reason it is perhaps more appropriately classified in column two ofTable 1 rather than column three.

19 Agawu, Playing with Signs, 20.20 Schoenberg, Musical Composition, 58.

Example 2 Coup d’archet: Mozart, Symphony No. 38 in D major (‘Prague’), K504/i, bars 1–3

Example 3 Fanfare: Mozart, Symphony No. 38 in D major (‘Prague’), K504/i, bars 15–16

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function, as shown in Example 4b.21 In this connection, let me clarify a point of terminology: when referringto a specifically cadential function, I mean the music that precedes the cadence and is thus responsible foreffecting formal closure. In contrast, post-cadential function follows the point of cadential arrival and istypically expressed by codettas that emphasize a root-position tonic. Cadence is an ending function; codetta,an after-the-end function. By prolonging the final tonic of the cadence, a post-cadential codetta emphasizesthat harmony in root position; the cadential function that precedes a cadence, on the other hand, emphasizesthe tonic in first inversion along with the pre-dominant and dominant harmonies that lead to the final tonicof the cadence.22 The emphasis on root-position tonic imparted by the musette thus makes it particularlyuseful in post-cadential situations, but inappropriate for cadential articulations.

21 The musette can also evoke the pastoral, a topic listed in column two of Table 1; however, the former is more specificin its musical features than the latter. The emphatic drone bass, especially, is an essential characteristic of the musette,yet it is not necessarily present in all instances of the pastoral.

22 This distinction between cadential and post-cadential functions is developed in greater detail in William E. Caplin,‘The Classical Cadence: Conceptions and Misconceptions’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 57/1 (2004),52–117. Failure to attend to this fundamental distinction has led to many serious conceptual and analytical misunder-standings.

Example 4 Musette: (a) as opening, Haydn, Symphony No. 104 in D major/iv, bars 1–9 (b) as post-cadential, Mozart,String Quintet in G minor, K516/ii, bars 82–90

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The topic of horn call is, as Agawu notes, ‘normally associated with announcements and openinggestures’ (see Example 5a).23 But unlike the others discussed so far, this topic brings with it a distinctly moreactive harmonic environment, the motion from tonic to dominant and back again to tonic. As a result thehorn call adapts itself easily to a variety of other functions, including both cadential (Example 5b) andpost-cadential (Example 5c). Indeed, Agawu has pointed out how horn signals ‘have a dual, somewhat

23 Agawu, Playing with Signs, 40.

Example 5 Horn call: (a) as opening, Haydn, Symphony No. 103 in E flat major/ii, bars 27–28, (b) as cadential, Haydn,Symphony No. 103 in E flat major/ii, bars 49–50, (c) as post-cadential, Haydn, Piano Sonata in A major, HXVI:30/i, bars54–58

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paradoxical signification in eighteenth-century music. Although they are often heard as signifiers ofbeginnings or as curtain-raisers, they also function frequently as parting signals – that is, as signifiers ofending’.24 Such dual potential probably arises from the fact that, like the fanfare, a horn call can either ascendor descend, the first being appropriate to initiation and the second to closure.

The remaining three topics listed in column three of Table 1 – lament, learned style and Sturm und Drang– exhibit varying degrees of instability and so tend to relate more readily to medial formal functions, such asthe continuation phrase of the sentence form, the B section of ternary form, the transition of an expositionor the development section of sonata form. Such functions generally serve to undermine the relative degreeof formal stability achieved by the beginning and to motivate the reestablishment of stability by means of acadence or a recapitulation of the opening material. Thus Sturm und Drang, one of the more widelydiscussed topics in the literature, brings extensive chromaticism, agitated rhythmic impulses and therepresentation of highly charged emotional states, all of which foster formal destabilization. The learnedstyle is appropriate as a formal middle particularly for reasons of texture: as Ratz has pointed out, polyphony,especially in connection with motivic imitation, creates an effect of instability in relation to more homo-phonic or melody-and-accompaniment textures.25 Finally, the lament topic, with its descending chromaticbass line and implied harmonic sequence, also has a natural affinity with medial functions, particularlywithin a given thematic unit (as in Example 6).26

In light of the specific musical characteristics we have now developed in connection with the topics ofcolumn three of Table 1, we can briefly return to those listed in column two. As already mentioned, anindividual manifestation of any one of these topics may prove more or less appropriate for a specific formalfunction. For example, if a particular instance of the pastoral style emphasizes root-position tonic (in themanner of the musette), the topic might be used either to begin a theme or to follow a cadence. Or, if a givencase of the brilliant style brings about a general liquidation of motivic content, then that topic might lenditself well to a cadential function.

But now we confront a troubling reality that haunts any discussion of the kind that we have beenpursuing thus far. For every case that we find of pastoral functioning as a formal initiator or brilliant style asa cadential close, it is easy to find cases of these topics appearing in almost any other formal position. And itis not difficult to identify specific musical characteristics that justify these varying relations of topic to form.The problem is especially acute with respect to the topics listed in column two, which permit a wide range ofharmonic, melodic and rhythmic possibilities. But some of those listed in column three are, as discussed,subject to the same variability. What, then, are we to make of cases where a topic seems to occupy anon-standard formal position? According to Agawu, such situations might reflect the composer ‘playingwith the listener’s expectations’.27 To what extent, however, is the formal variability of topic truly a reflectionof this notion of ‘play’? The question requires considerably more investigation, but the following general

24 Agawu, Playing with Signs, 59.25 Ratz, Musikalische Formenlehre, 25.26 To be sure, the lament bass line in this example literally starts at the beginning of the theme with a prolongation of the

tonic scale degree. Yet it is not until the bass first moves to the lowered seventh degree at bar 5 that we perceive thedescending stepwise sequence which is the defining characteristic of the topic, and this moment is what associates thetopic with a medial formal function. There are of course many cases – especially in ground bass works – where an entirethematic unit is supported by the lament topic, rendering mute any distinctions between beginning, middle andending functions. Seeing as the chromatic melodic figure lying at the basis of the lament appears so pervasivelythroughout music of the late Renaissance to the mid-twentieth century (as documented by Peter Williams, TheChromatic Fourth During Four Centuries of Music (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997)), many instances of that figure do notnecessarily project the affective attributes of sorrow, mourning and so forth that are typically associated with thelament as a genuine topos.

27 ‘It is worth stressing that although certain topics are appropriate at certain points of the musical discourse . . . acomposer is just as likely to use an ‘‘inappropriate’’ topic and, by so doing, draw attention to the compositionalprocedure by playing with the listener’s expectations’(Agawu, Playing with Signs, 47).

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principle might help govern further study: if we can identify that a given topic is displaced from itsconventional formal position, yet the topic also displays musical characteristics that are suitable for theformal position it actually occupies, there is little reason to believe that the composer is toying with ourexpectations on the relation of topic to form, even if that relation is not as typical as some other one. Toillustrate, consider Example 7.

Example 6 Lament: Mozart, String Quartet in D minor, K421/iii, bars 1–10

Example 7 Haydn, Symphony No. 39 in G minor/iv, bars 1–8

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Here an obvious Sturm und Drang topic occupies the most initiating position possible within a move-ment. Since this topic most often denotes a formal middle, do we have the impression that the work isbeginning, so to speak, in medias res, as often occurs in some romantic compositions, say, by Schumann? Iam inclined to think not, for the very reason that despite those musical characteristics that might beappropriate enough for a middle, there are even more prominent characteristics that make the passageentirely suitable for its formal position as a beginning – a strong sense of tonic stability and a two-bargrouping structure. To be sure, I do not want to deny that the appearance of this topic in an opening positiongenerates a particular expressive effect, one that is indeed associated with a group of works participating in asub-style of Haydn’s symphonic oeuvre traditionally termed Sturm und Drang. And by its placement at thebeginning of the movement, this topic is clearly marked in a special way; but not, I believe, in such a manneras to create a sense of formal disturbance or any particular play on the relation of topic to form.

By contrast, consider Example 8. Here the topic of horn fifths occurs at the very beginning of the work,yet its particular characteristics are precisely those more naturally associated with closure: the melodydescends and the harmonies are those used in a deceptive cadence. In comparison with the previousexample, it is easier to say ‘this music is in the wrong place’. And thus we are prompted to explore theaesthetic effect of this disturbance and even to consider whether the Lebewohl idea will eventually find itsmore appropriate formal position as a cadence.28 In such a case we can probably recognize and agree withAgawu’s notion of play, because there arises a distinct sense of dissonance with respect to how the topicexpresses it formal meaning. It needs to be stressed, however, that the sense of play does not simply derivefrom the choice of topic per se. For, as we have already seen, it is perfectly possible for a horn call to be usedas an initiating gesture without its giving rise to any sense of incongruity between topic and form. Rather, asis generally the case with our experience of formal functionality, the specific musical parameters are thedefining moments, not necessarily the generalized topical reference that may ensue from those collections ofcharacteristics.

Let me now raise an additional issue that further complicates the relation of topoi to form – theimportance of distinguishing among the various hierarchical levels of a musical work. At any given momentthere may be conflicting expressions of beginning, middle and end, depending on the level of structure underconsideration. For example, the music that follows the end of a main theme group of a sonata exposition canbe viewed as expressing a formal ‘beginning of the transition’; but that same music, by virtue of belonging tothe transition, could also be considered ‘being-in-the-middle of the exposition’ (that is, the transition fulfilsa medial function by standing between the main and subordinate themes). To illustrate this interaction of

28 In fact, the Lebewohl idea seems never to create a clear cadence: in the course of the rest of the movement the motivelargely occupies initiating formal positions, until, at the end of the coda, it participates in ‘after-the-end’ codettagestures. It is not until the beginning of the slow movement (‘Abwesenheit’) that horn fifths are used as cadentialfigures (bars 3–4, 7–8) within the main theme. For more on the affect associated with the initiating position of theLebewohl motive in the first movement see Leonard B. Meyer, Explaining Music: Essays and Explorations (Berkeley andLos Angeles: University of California Press, 1973), 243–245.

Example 8 Beethoven, Piano Sonata in E flat major, Op. 81a/i, bars 1–2

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levels, consider the transition from the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in F major K332, a work thathas enjoyed considerable attention from topical analysts (see Example 9).29 It is generally agreed that thesudden shift to D minor at bar 23 initiates a passage of Sturm und Drang expression; Agawu sees the topic offantasia exhibited here as well. Formally, the section from the upbeat to bar 23 initiates the transition of theexposition, and so, when viewed from the perspective of the entire exposition, the appearance of these topicsis entirely fitting: ‘Since transitions are inherently unstable, composers are likely to employ in those sectionstopics that are themselves inherently unstable. Both fantasia and Sturm und Drang are united in beingcharacterized by the absence of stability, and this alone makes their appearance in the present contextappropriate’.30 But from the perspective of the structure of the transition itself, the appearance of Sturm undDrang directly from the opening phrase associates that topic with a sense of formal beginning.31 Would this,then, be an example of an ‘inappropriate’ relation of topic to form, similar to that discussed in connectionwith Example 7? And if not (since none of the commentators on this piece suggest any incongruity betweentopic and form here), would we then be led to privilege the higher-level formal expression (Sturm und Drangas a medial, transition function) over that of the lower level (Sturm und Drang as initiating phrase)?

A counterexample suggests that we should not assume too quickly that a higher-level relation of topic toform has greater status than a lower-level one. Consider the beginning of the transition from Mozart’s ‘Linz’Symphony, K425 (Example 10). Here the fanfare topic is expressed with great force and vigour: that itoccupies an initiating formal position at the level of the phrase suggests an entirely suitable topic–formrelationship. But the appearance of this topic within the transition as a whole (indeed, much of the rest of thetransition continues to occupy itself with fanfare motives) could be seen to engender a potentially inappro-priate relationship of initiating topic to medial formal function. But nothing seems so out of the ordinary

29 Allanbrook, ‘Two Threads’, 130–145; Allanbrook, Rhythmic Gesture, 6–8; Agawu, Playing with Signs, 44–48.30 Agawu, Playing with Signs, 47.31 Using the analytical system developed in my Classical Form, the structure of the transition can be described as a loosely

organized compound sentence, whose initiating formal function (bars 23–26) is a compound basic idea.

Example 9 Mozart, Piano Sonata in F major, K332/i, bars 21–30

Example 10 Mozart, Symphony No. 36 in C major (‘Linz’), K425/i, bars 42–47

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here – all of the other parameters, especially the forte dynamic and the continuous quaver movement,support transition function – and I doubt that Agawu, for one, would want to claim a ‘play with expecta-tions’. And so in this case should we privilege the appropriate lower-level relation of topic to form (fanfareas initiating phrase) over the inappropriate higher-level one (fanfare as medial transition)? To all of thequestions raised by this example and the previous one, definitive answers seem not to be forthcoming:whereas we can recognize that multiple levels of organization come into play when considering the relationof topoi to form, it seems impossible, a priori, to determine which level will provide the appropriateconnection. As with our previous considerations, we are led to the sense that formal functionality andexpressive topicality tend to enter into informal, ad hoc relationships, ones that must be analysed on a highlyindividual basis.

What then can we conclude from this brief survey of ways in which musical topoi relate to formalfunction? Altogether, it would seem that the results are somewhat discouraging. Looking once more at Table1, we find that only a handful of topics have a determinate formal function and that, even with these, a giventopic can reflect a good deal of formal variability. Perhaps the only topic for which it is difficult to find variantformal positions is the Mannheim rocket, whose powerful associations with beginnings make it generallyunsuitable for other formal contexts. With regard to the possibility of topical play, as suggested by Agawu, Isuspect that genuine cases of such play arise infrequently, though we need more extensive empiricalinvestigations before a definitive conclusion on that issue can be reached.32

Finally, a word about what I discern as a kind of anxiety that some scholars betray when considering thepossibility of defining a syntax for musical topics. Might the urge to discover principles of topical successionoriginate in some need to legitimize the general practice of topical analysis? After all, most of our successfulanalytical models – be they harmonic, metric or formal – are grounded in powerful syntactical principles.But if we find in the end that topical analysis has little, or even no, syntactical basis, there is no reason forregret. Many modes of musical organization, such as timbre and dynamics, are clearly nonsyntactic, yet theyare no less significant forces for musical expression.33 Even if the relation of topoi to form is ultimately afragile one, this in no way invalidates the potential that topics may have within their primary function asbearers of conventionalized musical meaning. The recent work of Monelle, for example, shows how topicsmay be investigated in depth quite independently of formal considerations, and the kinds of semiotic/cultural studies that he has undertaken represent a most promising path for further research on topicaltheory. Thus the issues I raise here should not be taken as a means of inhibiting investigation into topicalanalysis but are instead offered with the intent of highlighting some of the thorny issues attendant on thatworthy task.

32 If the specific play of topic and form is relatively limited in late eighteenth-century instrumental compositions, otherkinds of formal play, especially involving conventionalized figures, are none the less widespread throughout thoseworks.

33 On the importance of nonsyntactic modes of musical organization see Leonard B. Meyer’s distinction between‘syntactic’ and ‘statistical’ parameters in Style and Music: Theory, History, and Ideology (Philadelphia: University ofPennsylvania Press, 1989), 14–16, 208–211.

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